Alternative mainstream media in the Czech Republic: beyond the dichotomy of alterative and mainstream media

The notion of alternative media is confronted with endless discussions about its key features and practices, which allow academics and media practitioners to differentiate alternative media from mainstream media. This article critically contributes to this debate by deconstructing and complicating the dichotomy between alternative and mainstream media. In a first part, the defining components of alternative media are discussed, looking at their relationship with the social context, their content and their organizational structure. At the same time, some of the tensions embedded in the concept of alternative media are laid bare. In the second part of the article we present an analysis of three local Czech magazines which are perceived and labelled by their publishers as ‘alternative’, though, as we show, they hardly meet the criteria described by alternative media theory. The ambiguity in the alternativeness of these media organizations not only raises questions about their labels (and whether we should accept their self-definitions), but more importantly also raises the issue how alternative media theory can deal with this type of organization. Instead of describing these media as hybrid, we suggest that they remain positioned within the category of mainstream media, though at the same time they are different from the ideal-typical conceptualization of mainstream media. The notion of alternative mainstream media is proposed, together with a plea for alternative media theory to protect the alternative media signifier more and to further unpack the notion of mainstream media.